Is Star Wars Battlefront 3 coming? Well, the correct answer is yes, no and maybe. It’s been six years since the second instalment, and fans are still waiting for confirmation of another sequel.
When the first game in the Star Wars: Battlefront series was released by LucasArts back in 2004, it was a hit with audiences everywhere. At its core, the first- and third-person shooter multiplayer Star Wars games are about the battle between two armies and their struggle for either power (in the case of the Confederacy of Independent Systems, The Galactic Empire, and the First Order) or freedom (in the case of the Galactic Republic, the Rebel Alliance, and the Resistance). Players are able to fight through a variety of extensive maps from the Star Wars universe, each of which offers its own advantages and disadvantages for either side. Playable heroes and villains specific to certain maps bring an interesting dynamic to the game.
Despite the poor AI and the lack of a single-player component, Star Wars: Battlefront was highly successful, and LucasArts went on to publish a number of follow-up games that were developed through several gaming companies over the years. The games included Star Wars: Battlefront II (which was created in 2005 by Pandemic Studios), Star Wars Battlefront: Renegade Squadron (released in 2007), Star Wars Battlefront: Elite Squadron (which was released for handheld consoles like the PSP in 2008) and Star Wars Battlefront: Mobile Squadrons (which was developed for mobile devices and released in 2009).
The franchise’s success eventually led to talks about developing a third instalment of the original Battlefront games, but before the project could properly take off, Star Wars (and Lucas Arts) was taken over by Disney, who brought on Electronic Arts (EA) as the chosen studio to take over the game development. Rather than make the planned third game, EA DICE would go on to reboot the game series to varying degrees of success.
While a lot of fans haven’t been too excited about the multiplayer game, preferring other Star Wars video games like Cal Kestis’ story in Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order or Starkiller’s story in Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, there were a few that were looking forward to finally getting a new instalment of the game. Let’s take a look at what the third entry would entail and whether Star Wars fans will actually get a Star Wars Battlefront 3.
What Fans Loved About the Star Wars Battlefront Games
Different Characters from Three Eras
Being able to play your favourite character from a movie is always fun. It’s even more fun when the character you choose is known for wielding the weaponized glow sticks that once belonged to their fallen enemies. Star Wars has a very large cast of unique and interesting characters, each of which brings something different to the story, and Star Wars: Battlefront II has made it possible for you to play as a lot of those characters.
You can choose to either shoot, cut or force-push your way through your enemies (depending on the character you decided to play as) and climb your way to victory. If you feel like bringing a bit of oddity to your game, you and your friends can even have the three different generations of Skywalker battle against each other.
The Design of the Planets and Terrain
The Star Wars: Battlefront game developers paid close attention to the details of everything, from the terrain of the different planets to the scuffs on war-weary ships; the design of the games is gorgeous and brings the world of Star Wars to life.
Each of the planets is designed to look and feel like the worlds we were introduced to in the movies. Characters’ designs help to make it look like they’re in the worlds that players are slowly battling their way through, and each one has its own unpredictable terrain that comes with a new set of challenges. Players can use the different elements of the world around them to their advantage, dropping in on their enemies from an unseen spot above or popping out of a tunnel that others might not have been previously aware of. Every element in the game does its part to bring the world of Star Wars to life.
Whether you want to take on the icy wastelands of Hoth (fortunately without having to cut open a Tauntaun to make sure your friend survives the night) or you and your friends want to recreate the fight between Obi-wan Kenobi and Jango Fett, Star Wars: Battlefront II has a little something for everyone, and there’s plenty to explore, hide behind and blow up.
An Awesome Array of Vehicles
Strolling the world in an AT-RT and raining down blaster fire on your enemies is an oddly satisfying pass time. The Star Wars universe has an extensive amount of interesting vehicles and that holds true for the Battlefront games. There is a wide variety to choose from, including some fan favourites like everyone’s beloved piece of junk, the Millennium Falcon, the ship that was passed on from father to son, the Slave I, and even Darth Vader’s Tie.
Like the planets, the ships have been designed to match that of the movies exactly, down to the scuffs of paint from passing blaster fire, so players feel like they’re actually taking part in the fight against the Empire (or the Rebel Alliance if you feel so inclined).
Multiplayer and Game modes
Many of the game modes in the Star Wars: Battlefront games are a lot of fun and make use of sandbox elements so that there is never a dull moment while you are playing through them. The most popular game mode is Capital Supremacy, which places two teams of 20 players on a large map and has them battle against each other for control of an outpost. Play switches between troops on the ground battling to capture control points and the fight on the massive ship that one team is trying to take over from the other. It’s heavily based on Star Wars: The Clone Wars and focuses mainly on the locations in the show.
A lot of interesting weaponry can be found as you play through the different world maps and players, respawn as Hero (or Villain) characters, and help their side take down their enemies.
What We Would Love to See in the Star Wars Battlefront 3
An Improved Campaign Mode
Star Wars fans who bought the second game so that they could play through the story campaign were quite disappointed when they were met with a lacklustre story with barely established characters. The campaign had a run time of 4 hours for the average player and was extremely repetitive, with the characters mostly just flying into an area to take out enemies and move on.
Both the characters and the story were completely forgettable and their unlikability made them impossible to care for the further the story progressed. If anything, the campaign felt more like a tutorial for the mechanics of the multiplayer modes, which is unfortunate because there is so much rich story potential in the world of Star Wars, and it feels like the developers didn’t even try.
Hopefully, with Star Wars Battlefront 3, we’ll be introduced to characters that we’ll actually be able to care about and be given a story that will hit fans as hard as the other successful Star Wars games have.
The Inclusion of New and Old Characters
The abundance of characters players are already given to play with is great, but since Star Wars: Battlefront II has come out, we’ve got a couple of new characters, and there are a few old ones that we still haven’t had the pleasure of playing as yet.
Ahsoka Tano is one of the most well-loved characters in the entire Star Wars universe. Her story is a tragic tale of a Jedi who perfectly emulates the beliefs and following and yet has been disgraced by her religion for a mistake that wasn’t even her fault. Her dynamic with Anakin and the clones in Star Wars: The Clone Wars and her habit of wielding double lightsabers had her quickly rising to the top of the fan-favourites list.
Din Djarin, the Mandalorian, is another great character in Star Wars who was tragically dismissed by his religion for elements outside of his control. Despite his lack of dialogue and visible facial expressions, he still somehow managed to win the hearts of many fans. Plus, it would be fun to hear him say, “I can bring you in warm, or I can bring you in cold,” to Darth Vader.
With Ahsoka’s double lightsabers and Din’s arsenal of weaponry, they would both be welcome additions to Star Wars Battlefront 3, as well as a number of other characters reintroduced to us in The Mandalorian. With all the new series from Star Wars coming out now, it would also be great to see some new character skins for Darth Vader, Obi-wan, and even Boba Fett, as well as the inclusion of characters that were introduced for the first time, like the Third Sister (Reva Sevander), and others that are being reintroduced to the fans who haven’t yet seen the animated series.
Revamping the Mechanics of the Heroes and Villains
While having the Heroes and Villains in the game is great, they are also all very overpowered and can make the multiplayer games very unenjoyable for the players who are stuck playing as troopers and are easily cut down by a lightsaber.
Fans of the game franchise are hoping that an approach similar to that of the 2005 Star Wars: Battlefront II is taken, in which there was one hero per team, and that hero was unique to the settings of the game. It’ll level out the playing field of the game and make Star Wars Battlefront 3 way more enjoyable for everyone involved.
An Improved Capital Supremacy Mode
While Capital Supremacy is the most popular multiplayer mode of the Star Wars: Battlefront series, there is still room for improvement. The mode focuses more on the Clone Wars era and leaves players with just a few playable worlds on which the war between the Clone Troopers of the Jedi Council and the Droid armies of the Separatists took place, and it takes away from the other Star Wars eras.
This was a missed opportunity on the developers’ side. Players could have found themselves fighting through an Imperial Star Destroyer above many Star Wars planets, but instead, they were subjected to just a few of the same ones. A game can start to get a bit tedious when you keep seeing the same terrain for hours on end.
More Space Combat
One of the core components of Star Wars is the epic space battle between the two sides, blaster fire flying everywhere, plenty of space debris, and tie-fighters flying in out of nowhere to make your life even more difficult. The most memorable moments in Star Wars are when the Death Star blew up and every moment with the Millennium Falcon.
The original Star Wars: Battlefront games used the mechanics of space battles that were similar to fights on the ground. There were a number of ways you could take out your enemies, and there were also a couple of different approaches that could be used to destroy an enemy ship. You could either choose to go the Anakin Skywalker route and destroy the ship from the inside out, or you could take the less risky route and blast the ship from the outside until it eventually falls to bits.
They’re a major element missing from the new games, and their inclusion could do a lot to help Star Wars Battlefront 3 or even future Star Wars projects.
Will there be a Third Star Wars Battlefront Game?
Rumours and a Disastrous Launch
After Star Wars: Battlefront II’s disastrous launch, during which it came under mass scrutiny from the gaming community and the world for what was seen as predatory microtransactions and a pay-to-win loot box system, the game tanked before it was even given a chance.
EA faced a lot of backlash after the game BETA test, and unfortunately, despite them fixing the problems everyone had with the loot boxes (now, rather than being central to player progression, they were just used for character cosmetics), Star Wars: Battlefront II would never truly recover from the fall it had taken.
Rumours started to swirl on Reddit, suggesting a generous estimate of a release date of November 2022. Obviously, that never actually happened.
Unfortunately for fans of the game series, there were rumours circling around the gaming community at the beginning of the year that the chance of EA DICE making a third game is very unlikely (after the response to the previous game, who can really blame them?). These rumours were later confirmed in May by video game industry reporter Jeff Grubb, who stated that EA DICE had never even planned on making Star Wars Battlefront 3 in the first place.
Respawn Entertainment Comes into Play
EA’s license with Disney expires in 2023, which is opening up the playfield for more companies to try their hand at the Star Wars games. One of the first to jump on board was Respawn Entertainment, a video game developer responsible for several widely successful and extremely popular online multiplayer, first-person shooter games like Titanfall and Apex Legends.
It was announced by EA and Lucasfilm Games that the game developer would be working on three new Star Wars projects with Peter Hirschmann as the director, and fans were excited that this might be the revival of the Battlefront game series. With Respawn Entertainment’s success, fans had no doubt that a Star Wars Battlefront III game being developed by them would be an instant hit, but rumours were quickly put to rest with a resounding “absolutely not”.
Fans Still Hold Out Hope for Star Wars: Battlefront III
Star Wars: Battlefront II has been a bit of a dumpster fire since it came out, but it has developed into a problem child that no one can really go without. Seeing the game franchise die out before it was really given a chance is very sad to watch.
There was recent news from the developer that before the cancellation of the game, it was almost finished, but because all the content had been covered in the previous game, it never saw the light of day.
Considering the game was so close to completion before it was left in the dust, there is a huge possibility that whatever is left could one day be picked up to be carried over the finish line. IGN confirmed that Former Lucasarts employee, who is now working at Naughty Dog, Michael Barclay confirmed this in his tweets, saying:
“I feel like it’s been long enough now to come out and say Star Wars Battlefront III was gonnae [sic] be legit incredible and the fact it got cancelled 2 yards from the finish line is an absolute crime. Gamers don’t know what they were robbed of.”
Clearly, many people agree that if the game had just been given a chance, Star Wars Battlefront III could have been one of the best Star Wars games of all time.
As it turns out, Michael Barclay’s claims might not even be as true as he had made them out to be. When GameSpot was reporting on the situation, another former LucasArts who wished to remain anonymous told them that “This 99 percent complete stuff is just bullsh*t. A generous estimate would be 75 per cent of a mediocre game.”
“I was at LucasArts during this time, working on Battlefront III, and I remember it well. Everybody from producers to marketing was 100 per cent invested in making the relationship work. We were desperate for a next-gen follow-up to Battlefront (the claim that the project was sabotaged for financial reasons is ludicrous. The [Battlefront] franchise was a huge money maker at the time).
When Free Radical Design continually missed dates and deliveries, [former LucasArts presidents Jim Ward and Darrell Rodriguez] made many ‘good will’ whole or partial milestone payments to keep the project going.”
It has been many months since the controversy surrounding the third instalment of the Star Wars Battlefront series died down, but as recently as October of 2023, rumours have returned and once again started to soar. The latest rumours suggest that gamers need to keep their eyes peeled for Star Wars Celebration in Japan in April 2025, thinking that we will hear about the game then and that the release will be in November 2025.
Let’s hope we get to see the third Star Wars Battlefront game released on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X, Nintendo Switch, and PC soon.
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Tell us, do you think there will be a Star Wars Battlefront 3?
